Keith Richards Says Rolling Stones Are on Board for New Album

Keith Richards has been pushing for a new Rolling Stones album, and it looks like his lobbying has paid off. "I was at a meeting with the lads three or four days ago where everybody said, 'Yes! We must go in the studio!'" Richards tells the Quietus.

This would make it the first new band album since 2005's A Bigger Bang, and the first new music since the Stones added a pair of new songs – "Doom and Gloom" and "One More Shot" – to the 2012 hits compilation GRR! Richards, meanwhile, is set to release Crosseyed Heart, his third solo album, on Friday.

Details on when the Rolling Stones might enter the studio are still unconfirmed, Richards added. But having Mick Jagger, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts on the same page has Richards in a exultant mood.

"Where or when I can’t yet say, but in the near future," he says. "At last, I’ve got the boys wanting to get into the studio. They all have to want to do it at the same time. That’s the thing with guys: You can’t drag 'em in at gunpoint. But I’ve got the message that they want to. I’m hopeful, y’know?"

With such a long interval between albums, it would have been fair to assume the Rolling Stones considered just calling it quits at some point. "Never," Richards noted. "They just hibernate."